


Out of Retirement

by WisteriaBlooms



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26643034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WisteriaBlooms/pseuds/WisteriaBlooms
Summary: Leslie Jang was once a promising demigod, having achieved mastery of magic and illusions at the mere age of 14. However, a shocking betrayal caused her to lose her legs and most of her magic abilities. 10 years later, she’s come to terms with living among the mortals in Brooklyn, training to be a therapist, having retained just enough of her power to protect herself.But when a scrawny son of Hades shows up, battered, at her door one day, she just couldn’t turn him away. What she didn’t expect was that he would be the first of a chain of demigods to show up at her door, slowly bringing her back into the demigod world she had tried for so long to forget about.This story is set after Heroes of Olympus but before Trials of Apollo, and various demigods will be making an appearance
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Leslie Jang peaked at 14. 

That’s a thing that a lot of people like to claim, that they peaked in middle school and high school, but most of that was bullsh*t. 

At 14, Leslie had demigod friends, respect from both her parents (a hard task to achieve when one of them is a literal Greek goddess), unbelievably powerful magic, and both her legs. 

All she had left of that life was the nightmares. Her particular brand of nightmare this morning was (arguably) the worst kind - a kaleidoscope of flashbacks. The silver blades, the glinting blue eyes that were oh so familiar, the red tinge to everything that was slowly getting stronger and stronger, until they became all encompassing and that last desperate dive for water, still with the hope somehow, that she would make it out of this unscathed. 

She had had this nightmare enough times to recognize it while it was still in its earlier stages, yet she had never managed to elevate her lucid dreaming to the point where she could change the outcome. For once, she was glad when her alarm blared loudly, causing her to jolt awake. 

Leslie rubbed her eyes slowly, then sighed and got out of her bed, with some difficulty, her now useless legs dragging behind her, then managed to pull herself into her wheelchair sitting idly beside her bed. 

She wheeled herself to her dresser and inspected the array of colorful samples there. “Sh*t, I really need to make more of that dream blocker.” she muttered to herself. 

She looked at her calendar - she only had one class today, which should be easy enough to get through. What she really needed to focus on was getting that paper for Family Psychotherapy. How ironic, as if she was anywhere close to being qualified to speak on that. 

She quickly made herself a cup of coffee, and decided to hold brunch off until after her class. Making sure to put on her warding necklace, made of the same cord that had once held her Camp Half Blood beads. 6 of them, she had been so proud that the second to last one was a tribute to her. Now they were long gone, hidden away somewhere in the bottom of some messy drawer. She didn’t know why she was still holding on to the cord, probably some form of lingering sentimentality that she just couldn’t bring herself to shut away. 

Her morning was normal enough - the lecture was boring and she didn’t both to stick around after the class to socialize with the rest of the students. They would just look at her with pity. 

‘I don’t need your pity,’ she wanted to scream sometimes. ‘I could’ve beaten all of you, together, in a fight, blindfolded when I was 13.’

But she kept her mouth shut. She was here for one reason, and there was no need to make friends, no need to be constantly reminded of how mundane her life was now. 

She was graduating soon anyways - one more semester and she was out of here, it didn’t matter. 

Her place was close enough to campus that she decided to just wheel herself home, and it was still before noon, and the streets were bright enough that she didn’t feel the need to keep her hand on the small dagger hidden seamlessly on the inside pocket of the chair. 

Her blood drew cold though when she rounded the corner, and saw the young boy, who looked no older than 15, running in her direction while holding an obsidian sword. He was quite pale, and had long black hair, which appeared to be matted possibly due to bleeding. He didn’t seem to notice her, so she stared at him more closely - he appeared to have a large gash on the right side of his ribcage, which was bleeding profusely. She watched in amazement as he turned around suddenly, to face the snake woman that had been chasing him. 

‘Dracaenae,’ she recalled with some difficulty, cursing herself at the display of forgetfulness.

To her surprise, the boy made some sort of hand gesture, and a skeleton(?) just popped out of the ground. ‘Whose kid is he?’ she wondered in amazement. ‘Is that something that they can just do nowadays?’

However, that amazement turned into the concern when the skeleton rushed at the dracaenae, only to start dissolving back into the ground. ‘He’s too weak to hold it for too long,’ she realized with a jolt. 

Roaring, the dracaenae charged towards the boy, who was thankfully able to sidestep, and she instead ran headfirst onto Leslie’s lawn. Or at least, she would have, if the purple force-field like sphere didn’t suddenly activate and spring her backwards several feet. ‘Ah, so my wards still work perfectly fine,’ Leslie remarked with a certain level of smugness.

The boy must have realized that this was not a natural event, as moved toward the place that had bounced the dracaenae back - he put his hand where the purple force field had been, but it went right through. Taking the cue, he quickly backed up so he was within the radius of the protective sphere. The dracaenae charged toward him, and was repelled a second, then third time, before it gave up and settled on snarling at him. The boy backed up further along the lawn and made it close to the doorway before he finally collapsed on the soil. 

‘Well, that kind of leaves a problem for me,’ Leslie thought, annoyed, as she gauged the distance she still had from the safety of her house, and tried to figure out if she could make it there quickly enough. The dracaenae had not noticed her yet. 

‘Spoke too soon’, the demigod in her admonished as right at that moment, the dracaenae turned to her and snarled, before approaching her quickly, slithering in that gross way that dracaenae tended to do. Trying her best to remain calm, she grappled in her wheelchair pocket until her fingers grabbed hold of a few small smooth balls. When the dracaenae got close enough, she chucked them with her full force, and they exploded into balls of flame, stunning and blinding the dracaenae. She used this opportunity to furiously wheel her chair toward her house, around the monster. 

She wasn’t fast enough, however, as a leathery hand grabbed a hold of her right arm. “Where do you think you’re going, pretty thing?,” the monster said in a mocking tone. 

Without responding, Leslie quickly pulled out the knife with her left hand and stabbed it in the middle of the snake lady’s arm. She pulled back with a threatening hiss, and Leslie used this opportunity to get the rest of the way to safety. She watched with a certain degree of satisfaction as the snake lady once again tried to breach her protective wards, but hissed loudly as the magic sphere crackled against her leathery skin. 

“You’re not going to get in.” She told the monster. 

“Don’t worry, demigod” the monster replied vehemently. “You can’t kill me either and I’m not going anywhere. I’m sssssstaying right here, and you can’t avoid me forever.”

This was a problem. The snake monster was right - Leslie was in no shape to kill her, and she needed to go out eventually - there was only so much food in the house. She looked at the root cause of her problems distastefully. It was this boy’s fault that she was stuck in such a predicament. 

‘What are you gonna do about it?’ her more logical side asked. ‘Leave him out here to bleed out? I’m sure that won’t attract any attention in any way. Besides, he seems like a capable enough demigod, if he wasn’t on the verge of passing out. Just help him, then make him kill the snake for you. Win win situation.’

Leslie didn’t like it, but she really only had the one choice. Sighing, she picked up the boy (who was surprising light), slinging his brown backpack across the back of her wheelchair, and grabbing his sword to slide in the side pocket. 

With not a small amount of effort, she was able to drag him into the house then onto the couch. Digging around in his bag, she found, to her relief, a small bag of ambrosia. She took a little bit for herself, to heal the scratches on her right arm, then slowly fed the rest to the boy. 

She looked at his sleeping figure, blood soaking into her couch, and sighed. Now all there was left to do was wait.


	2. Chapter 2

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have taken any of that ambrosia,’ Leslie thought to herself, with a twinge of guilt, when she looked up from her completed essay 3 hours later, and the boy still hadn’t woken up. ‘I could’ve just waited for the scratches to heal by themselves, I don’t think it was venomous.’ But part of the temptation was that it had been years since she’d had any ambrosia - and that first welcoming taste of the fragrant rice cakes her grandma used to make - it felt like home. 

She sighed, putting down her computer, and studied him more closely. He was definitely a demigod, considering how he didn’t burst into flames when she fed him the majority off the ambrosia. She couldn’t quite tell how old he was, but given the typical lifespan of a demigod, she would put it at somewhere around 15. He was kind of scruffy looking and was dressed in black from head to toe, and she couldn’t tell if it was to hide from monsters at night (smart idea by the way) or if it was just fashion.

She tried to guess at the demigod’s godly parent - she was sure that she had seen him raise a skeleton - but that only presented more questions than it answered. Was he maybe a son of Hecate and therefore her half-sibling? It could be possible, given that Hecate was also a goddess of ghosts. Though she personally had never managed to fully unlock the necromancy side of her powers (one of her few shortcomings), she remembered all too well someone who could.

He had to be a son of Hecate, she decided. The only other possibility - which did cross her mind briefly - was a son of Hades, but she quickly dismissed that thought. If that was the case, there was no way he had lived this long, given the prophecy. Zeus and Poseidon would’ve had his head long ago.

She scrolled on her phone for another hour, watching the boy idly, but when it was already 6 pm and he still had not woken up, she decided to go make herself dinner instead. As she was in the kitchen, debating whether to make for one or two people, she heard a crash from her living room and grimaced. Great, the brat was awake

She quickly wheeled herself out of the kitchen and was faced with the boy pointing his sword in her direction, left hand clutching the site of his wound. He was standing in the middle of the pile of shattered glass that had been her coffee table and had a crazed look in his eyes. 

“What did you do with my things?” He demanded. 

Leslie frowned, then tilted her chin to the side of the couch, where his backpack lied less than 3 feet from where the boy was. He made no attempt to move, instead asking, “Who are you and why did you bring me in here?”

Leslie wheeled herself forward a bit and the boy raised his sword even higher. “Stay where you are, don’t come any closer.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you hit your head or something? If I was gonna hurt you, don’t you think I would have done it while you were asleep? You really think I would try to fight a skeleton-raising trigger-happy demigod given that I can’t even walk?” 

In hindsight, she probably should have been nicer about this, considering that she had been in that exact position before and knew that the kid had probably learned to be so cautious the hard way. On the other hand, she was just trying to live her life and now her sofa was soaked with blood, her coffee table was broken and there was a snake monster pacing outside. 

Surprisingly, her earlier retorts had actually seemed to work a bit on the boy, who still held his sword, but didn’t do anything as she wheeled herself closer. 

After a long pause, Leslie gave in. “My name is Leslie. I’m assuming you’re a demigod, given all this. I’m also a demigod, daughter of Hecate, to be specific.”

There was another bout of silence, during which a number of microexpressions flashed across the demigod’s face, before he finally put his sword down and said sullenly. “I’m Nico.”

She noticed that he had deliberately left out his godly parents, but still chose to press. “Are you also a child of Hecate.”

“No.”

This was a surprise, since her only real guess had been Hecate. Skeletons weren’t exactly a common power, so that only left… “You’re a son of Hades?” She burst out.

He flinched, and she took that as a yes. Almost immediately, she felt a surge of pity for the boy. “Are you… the child of the prophecy?” She asked much more carefully. 

“What? No, no I’m not. That’s already happened, like two years ago.” Leslie was shocked - the prophecy she had heard so much about, the one that was passed down for like seventy years - it was just… done? Jeez - just how much did she miss in the last ten years? 

He didn’t say anything for another while and Leslie sighed internally. He was really not inclined to communicate with her, was he? “You know, you can leave if you want. If you’re going, all I ask is that you kill that monster that’s pacing in front of my house.” she nodded toward the window, and he hesitantly went over to check that the dracanae was indeed still there. 

“Why should I do that? Instead of just shadow-travelling?” Nico asked. 

Leslie raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “I don’t really know what that means, but you should kill the monster because you were the one who brought it here in the first place. Plus, you kinda owe me one for destroying half my furniture.”

She tried her best not to let her desperation show, but the truth was that without him, she had no other choice - she had fought dracanae before and they were a pain, even when she had her powers. The only reason she had gotten by the one in front of the house was that she had caught it by surprise, a luxury she wouldn’t get a second time. 

At the same time, she was internally classifying the boy in front of her. He reminded her a little bit of herself, ten years ago, all distrustful gaze and fidgety motions, he didn’t seem like the kind of person who liked to work with/for others. She was counting on the hope that, like most demigods, he would have a strong sense of honor though and be inclined to solve the problems that he caused. 

As she looked more closely though, she started to question her initial hasty judgement of him. He had pretty deep eyebags, his hands were more shaky than fidgety, he was hunched forward, and slightly unsteady on his feet. She felt her therapist (in-training) instincts kick in, and decided to try a different approach. 

“Or, third option, if you’re still tired, you can stay here for a bit. I’ll make us dinner, and then we can figure what to do with that snake head outside a bit later. Who knows? Maybe she’ll go away by herself.”

Nico’s next words were quiet, and Leslie barely heard them. “Alright, I’ll stay for a bit.”

Leslie lit up in happiness that her assessment had worked. “Great! Take a seat!” She looked at the only seating near them at the moment. “Or not, I guess.”

Nico just walked over to the wall and leaned against it. “So what happened to you? And how have you been on your own for so long without being killed by monsters?” 

Leslie sighed - this was going to be a long day and a tough conversation.


	3. Chapter 3

Leslie hummed to herself, as she wheeled herself back into the kitchen, reaching in the food to grab more chicken, now that it was apparent that she would need to cook for two people. 

She frowned, the fridge wasn’t exactly well-stocked - she had been planning on going to the grocery store the next day, since she only had a morning class, but that wasn’t exactly possible with the monster pacing out front. Growling to herself, she wished for the nth time that she still had her powers, or even just the smallest fraction of them. 

She was reaching for the soy sauce, which she had put just a bit too far into the shelf the last time, when a scarily pale hand apparated next to hers. She would’ve jumped, if it were physically possible for her, but instead, she just jolted her arm, which smacked into the kid’s side. 

“Jeez, when’d you sneak up on me like that?” She demanded, with a bit of apprehension. She, like most other demigods, had ADHD and was pretty good at picking out her surroundings, but she hadn’t heard one footstep leading up to his approach. 

He handed her the bottle with a slightly cautious expression. “Sorry, I guess. I guess I tend to freak people out, huh?”

Not expecting his dejected and slightly frightened tone, Leslie frowned at him. Terms and case studies from her classes popped into her head. Of course! He was a Big Three child, and son of Hades no less; most demigods, even the well-intentioned ones, would probably find it to be some degree of disturbing. Despite his unkempt appearance, he was clearly strong, and if anyone should know the price that comes with strength, it was her. 

As she reached these conclusions, she felt herself begin to soften up. Exactly because she understood what he might be facing at the camps, she needed to give to him what no one had given to her all those years ago. 

“Tch, don’t give yourself too much credit,” Leslie replied, letting fondness creep into her voice. “I’d be freaked out by anyone who managed to sneak up on me like that. It takes a lot of skill, you know, sneaking up on a demigod like me.”

She turned to him, and saw clearly a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, before it was willed away. 

“You never answered my questions,” the voice startled her. “What happened to you?”

She tensed up. This was not exactly her favorite topic to discuss, especially not with a demigod, who although she sympathized with, she had barely known for a day.

“Oh you know, being a demigod’s never been easy. The camp gets attacked by monsters, people get hurt, or even die. Honestly, I should probably count myself lucky just to be alive” She muttered, pausing letting the last part sink in, for either of them.

“How long have you been away from camp?”

“Oh, about ten years now, I was fourteen when it happened.” Leslie found herself slipping into another reverie, which only broke when the oven started beeping

His eyebrows scrunched up, as if deep in thought. “Was that before or after the whole Thalia thing?”

“Who?” She added some broccoli to the wok, stirring absently.

“Thalia? Daughter of Zeus? Turns into a tree that protects the camp?”

“I’m sorry.” Leslie said, putting down her spatula. “This daughter of Zeus turns into a what that does what?”

He widened his eyes, then sighed softly. “This is gonna be a long conversation, isn’t it?”

She gave him the biggest smile she could muster. “Yep, and you’re gonna tell me everything. C’mon, the rice is ready, you can tell me over dinner.”

He initially started to refuse, but the smell of the BBQ chicken as it was pulled out of the oven must have swayed him, since he took a seat at the kitchen table, and dug in. The daughter of Hecate watched him eat with a bit of amusement, and a bit of concern at how fast the food was disappearing. God, she had forgotten how much teenage boys ate, especially when they spent the better part of an afternoon bleeding out on a couch. 

She let him have a few minutes of peace, before her curiosity burst out. “Thalia - is that the prophecy kid?”

He paused after a large bite, and swallowed with some difficulty, before saying “No, it was a kid called Percy, son of Poseidon.”

Leslie raised my eyebrow at him. “Wait what? How many kids did the Big Three have? Jesus Christ, what even was the point of that pact then, not one of them followed it?”

“Hades did,” Nico muttered quietly. 

“Huh? What does that mean?” she frowned. He didn’t respond, but she let it slide. There were more pressing matters. 

“What do you mean she turned into a tree?”

“Exactly what I said. She was turned into a tree by her father Zeus. Basically, she was retrieved by Grover”

“Oh hey, I remember him!” Leslie interjected, then quieted at the stare he gave her. 

“And then a bunch of monsters were following them, because there were two other demigods, Annabeth and Luke. And they made it to the top of the hill, but couldn’t get any farther.” She winced at that.

“So she sacrificed herself to fight the monsters while her friends got away, and Zeus turned her into a tree, that also put a layer of protection on the camp”

“Oh that’s nice. The protection I mean, not the whole turned into tree thing.” She clarified when Nico frowned at her. “Wish we had that back in my day.” She couldn’t help it if there was bitterness that crawled into her voice at the last sentence. 

He looked at her with a bit of shock. “Wait, did you guys not…?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Have protection from a tree? No, we didn’t. That’s never been a thing, you guys are lucky.”

“Yeah, lucky,” Nico repeated sarcastically under his breath. “Wait, then weren’t you being attacked by monsters left and right?”

“Yeah, basically,” Leslie gave a humorless chuckle. “There’s a reason you don’t see very many demigods past 30 running around.” 

“But wouldn’t the monsters just be attacking the camp all the time? I mean, the camp would hardly exist.” Nico protested

“Well, it was kinda like that when I got there. But, you know, people adapted to just be on alert all the time. And then for the last 2-3 years I was at camp, I managed to create a warding layer, with my magic and stuff. It went away though when the accident happened, but I guess Thalia arrived not too long after I left.”

He looked at Leslie, and she could swear there was a hint of admiration in his eyes. “You created a ward? By yourself? Over the entire camp?”

Leslie smiled a bit in pride at her younger self’s achievements. She pointed her chin to the door in a general method. “Kinda like how the dracaenae hasn’t burst in through those doors yet, or how they weren’t able to get on the lawn when you were fighting them earlier. It’s one of the few things I can still do, a little bit, and I used to have enough power to do it over the whole camp.”

He was silent for a second, then she added, as an afterthought. “And yes, that’s why I’m not dead yet despite being mostly useless.”

Nico’s head snapped up. 

“Yeah, I could tell you were wondering that. Don’t worry, it’s a good question.” Leslie reassured him. 

They had both finished their dinners by this point, and Nico got up, grabbing his plate to put it next to the sink. Leslie followed him, grabbing multiple plates to stack them on the counter. 

As she got ready to load them into the dishwasher, she heard Nico’s voice, just as unexpected as before, sound out from behind her. 

“I guess you were pretty powerful, back in the day, huh. It’s a shame.” He said, and she smiled when she noticed that there was sincerity, and no pity, in his voice. 

After the dishes were loaded up, they sat back around the table and Nico began to really dive deep into explaining what happened. He claimed it was only an abridged story, but Leslie could hardly believe him, given the things he was saying, interjecting ever so often just to confirm that she hadn’t heard the wrong thing. 

“The labyrinth?”

“Kronos??”

“There’s another great prophecy?”  
“And it’s done already?”

“What do you mean there’s a roman camp?”

“Excuse me, they just survived Tartarus?”

Before they realized it, it was already late, and the sun had set long ago. “Are you sleeping here tonight?” She asked, reluctantly interrupting his story about how the Romans had attacked the Greeks. 

He looked at the window, then back to her. “No, I should go. It was really great talking to someone who understands, though”

“You mean like an older demigod?” 

He looked off vacantly. “Yeah, I guess. But more than that, someone outside Camp Half Blood, who understands what it’s like to be a demigod and how it’s not always flowers and sunshine. It’s just nice to know that it’s possible, I guess, to live a normal life.”

Yeah, Leslie chuckled internally. ‘A normal life’.

“Are you sure you should leave now? It’s kinda late, I don’t want you to be attacked. Especially with snake lady still pacing around.”

He looked at her with hardened resolve “It’s fine. I feel much better now. I do better in the dark anyways. Don’t worry, I’ll kill that dracaena for you.”

He paused, and Leslie had to force herself not to coo as his determined expression melted into a soft, love-stricken one. “Plus, Will is gonna get worried if I don’t get back in time for curfew.”

“Will?” She asked, but she really didn’t need to. There was no suspense as to the relationship between Nico and this mysterious person. 

“Yeah,” he smiled back at her. “My boyfriend. I’ll see if I can get you to meet him sometime.”

Before she could say another word, he was gone.

Leslie almost wanted to pinch herself, that this was all real, that she wasn’t in another one of her dreams (though her dreams were never this benevolent). 

Then she looked at the glass shards that used to be her coffee table, and the darkened brown stains on her couch and sighed to herself. ‘Yup, this was all real alright.’


End file.
